VMWARE Fusion 13.5 - Migration of Windows VMs fron Fusion 12 5

[jmv2]

I just upgraded my Macbook Pro 15 " 2019 Intel chip to 
a Macbook Pro 2023 16" Apple M2 Max Chip.running Sonoma.

That is when I discovered that my 12.5 Fusion Windows VM would not work anymore.
So I installed 13.5 and Windows 11 and it seems to be running fine.

I have several Windows VMs (2012 Server, Windows 10, Windows 7, XP, etc.) sitting there compatible only with the Intel chip.

My question is: will there ever be any way tools available to migrate my existing 12.5 Windows VMs Intel-based to 13.5 Apple Silicon ?
Or is this not possible?

Am I stuck not being able to run those VMs anymore on my new Macbook ?

JM

[Technogeezer · Accepted solution]

Your Windows VMs that run on your old Intel Mac will not work on an Apple Silicon Mac. Not under Fusion and not under Parallels. The only version of Windows that runs on Fusion is windows 11 and in particular the ARM version of Windows 11  

There no silver bullet or magic tool that will “convert” what you have. You will need to build a new Windows 11 ARM VMs on the M2 Mac and migrate your data and applications to the new VM. You can not upgrade those VMs in-place because Microsoft does not provide a tool to “upgrade” a system running Intel Windows to ARM Windows.

Think along the lines of “what would you do if you had an old computer running Windows and now have a brand new computer that won’t run your old version of Windows?”

You would be looking at some things like copying your old data to a disk that you could attach to a new VM to more creative tactics such as attaching the virtual disks of the old VM to a new VM to copy data. You will need to make sure that your old applications run on windows 11 ARM and in some cases may need to upgrade or replace apps depending on what you find.

[jmv2]

Thank you Technogeezer. Very clear.

That is what I apprehended but needed an expert like you to confirm my doubts.

Now to work moving my old VMs to new VMs

Take care,

JM